


Euphoria: HoneyThief

by TaMeaut



Series: Euphoria [2]
Category: Musa Baek Dongsu | Warrior Baek Dong Soo
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:31:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaMeaut/pseuds/TaMeaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when the puppy you played with and cherished so much, suddenly runs away from you. Did you search for him? Or did you abandon him, like he did you? And if you meet again would you want to punish him or is forgiveness stronger than revenge?</p><p>Alternate version of "Euphoria"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Title** : Euphoria: Honeythief  
 **Series** : Warrior Baek Dong Soo  
 **Soundtrack** : Honeythief – Halou  
 **Spoilers** : -  
 **Time frame** : Ep. 17 (first meeting after three years)  
 **Summary** : What happens when the puppy you played with and cherished so much, suddenly runs away from you. Did you search for him? Or did you abandon him, like he did you? And if you meet again would you want to punish him or is forgiveness stronger than revenge?  
 **Excerpt** : _“I am crying and with every tear, I get one step closer to my final dream, a pool of blood and you walking away. For I will drown in this lake of tears and broken dreams and you will walk away, for I am not worthy of anything else._ ”  
 **Pairings** : Baek Dong Soo/Yeo Un  
 **Word count** : ~13000  
 **Rating** : NC17 (angst galore, smut galore and fluff galore (so much fluff, bunnies are embarrassed) )  
 **Warning** :  
 **Other** : Since this scenario was just WAY too good to write only one fic about (“Euphoria”) I have here written an alternative version with a different angle. However, I am still reusing some of the original writing from “Euphoria”, especially the beginning and the end is the same with only subtle differences, so don't think you are crazy if you recognise some of it. Text in “ **bold** ” is original dialogue from series.  
 **Thanks** : To everyone who wanted a more romantic/fluffy love scene  
______________________________________________________________________________________

“ _Despite this cruel world  
and all my best efforts  
You surprise me with just how perfect you are_ ”

 

**CHAPTER I: This is Me...**

I can see it in your tear pregnant eyes. You don't really believe that I will actually coldly cut your throat. You think it is all a façade and that any moment now I will break into a smile and tell you it was all a joke. Somewhere inside you still think I am the Un-ah you have seen growing up with Dong Soo and Cho Rip. Innocent children playing games that feign reality. Well, sorry to disappoint you, Jin Gi, but I am not innocent anymore, I never have been, and this is not an act. This is me. This is me raising my blade, ready to tear a gash in your windpipe for no other reason then that you came in my way.

“ **Do not blame me.** ” The combination of words that have become my mantra these years have completely lost their meaning but I cannot stop myself from saying them as my blade starts it descent. And if not for a loud shout halting me midway you would already be but a distant memory bleeding over my shoes.

“ **What are you doing?** ” Ji's exclamation is a slight surprise to me but then again she has always been soft at heart. It is almost comical how, a second later, the very same words are echoed back from In but with a wholly different meaning.

“ **What are you doing?** ” Should I feel conflicted? I don't. Still having my blade raised I see no reason to discontinue what I have already started. I admit that your face is slightly familiar and maybe it should unnerve me a little thinking that I am killing someone from my past, someone I once knew, but it is not enough. You are just not important enough.  
Then, again, a loud voice is heard. Again, I halt my motion. However this time it is not my mind stopping the blade but my body, for the voice I hear speaking is resonating inside me in the most disturbingly familiar way.

“ **Stop!** ” Just one word and I freeze, like a lake in deep winter. For this is the voice I have yearned to hear for over three years. The voice that has been haunting my dreams and nightmares. The voice of the man that relentlessly taught me friendship, honour, love and all those other completely unnecessary feelings.

Baek. Dong. Soo.

Almost against my will my face slowly turns your way, as if a dark desperate craving makes me move even though I fight it with my entire force of will.

“ **Un-ah...** ” You are breathtakingly luminous, I feel like looking straight into the Sun and the way my name melts of your lips makes me think of dark nights, damp grass, caresses, sighs and kisses. I narrow my eyes as you turn too bright for me.  
“ **Put your sword away.** ” I would like to say something very clever in reply but my mind is blank like a white sheet of paper and before I get a chance to make a complete fool out of myself I am saved by In spitting his words at you.

“ **You! You must be still out of your mind.** ” This is probably the only time I have ever felt that that incompetent psycho has actually been of any help whatsoever. For your very presence has rendered me completely void of clever remarks or profound wisdom. You, just standing there, move my very soul out of place. You, looking at me with those eyes, shake me to the core and I feel an almost acute need to say your name out loud. Then, before I again can make a fool out of myself, I am saved by another psycho.

The Chinese claiming to be the new Master of Heuksa Chorong draws his sword and places it against your neck. Somehow it makes me curiously angry and I feel a ridiculous need to reach out and remove the sharp object from your tender skin, however you just break my gaze and smile.

“ **Someone once said...A sword is wielded not by your hand but by your heart.** ” You are so calm and composed, it is slowly unnerving me. And your profound words, so unlike you, make me think of how you so easily rendered me completely speechless by your very appearance. When did you become so much more mature than me? When did you cage your impulsiveness until your very essence is calmer than Mount Taisan? Then, as if that was not enough, in one inhumanly fast move you grab the sword pointed at your neck and reverse the situation by pointing it back on your attacker. When did you become so fast, and accurate? I am sure my eyes are giving me away for as you look again on me, your eyes are dancing.  
“ **Also, only desperate heart can truly move sword.** ” Touché. Not only do you render me breathless, voiceless and helpless. You also know exactly what to say to make me think you know what moves me. I would like to protest but unfortunately your words carry such a weight that I can only applaud your insight.

“ **Your martial art is great. But you're still young.** ” The Chinese's words give away his stupidity. Yes, your martial arts is great however it matters not a single grain that you are young. I am just as young and the things I have done in name of Heuksa Chorong would drown this old Chinese ajussi in rivers of blood. My hands itch to rid the world of his annoying presence however he manages to save himself in the last minute by sheathing his sword and walk off with most of “my” underlings drawing a bewildered comment from In.

“ **Sky Lord...?** ” Then, In, to hide his embarrassment of not understanding his masters actions he turns to me and gives me a an order I don't even pretend to hear.

“ **Hurry up and finish him off.** ” Does he really think I would follow such an absolutely ridiculous order coming from him? I would sooner finish him off for trying to rule me. However, I must thank him for giving me plenty of time to regain my senses that got so brutally blunted by your appearance. Finally I can smile with my mouth, keeping my eyes blank, unreadable. I will no longer give myself away by saying what I have been thinking the entire time you have been standing there.

“ **You've gotten much better.** ” It is the understatement of a century but it is enough, for now.

“ **You will hear about me a lot in the future. Joseon's best swordsman...Baek Dong Soo.** ” So not only are you calm, composed, quick and skilled, wise and profound. You are also the most confident man I have ever met, you always have been. You are everything I am not. I would very much like to hate you but all I can do is admire the supreme force emanating from you. You make me smile, when I want to cry.

“ **Joseon's best swordsman?** ” For a second I feel as if we are back to who we used to be. You words echoing over the years that have passed. It has a very nice ring to it, I admit that, it is most probably true, even. But, Dong Soo, have you forgotten? You might be Joseon's best swordsman but I am, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Joseon's very finest assassin.  
I might not be as cockily confident as you.  
I might not have your beaming charisma or talent for words.  
But, as inhumanly lightning-fast as you were in disarming the Chinese Heuksa Chorong, I am...faster.

Before you have the time to blink, my sword is already in your face, only millimeters from your eyes, cutting a mischievous lock of your hair. As the strands starts to softly float through the air my sword is already sheathed and your eyes no longer burn with infinite confidence. Have your breath painfully caught in you lungs? Are you silently cursing your bloated ego as you realise that maybe you have grossly underestimated the situation, and me? Are you thinking that not even on your best day, trying your hardest, would you have been able to deflect that strike? If you are not, then I will show you how truly terrifying the true Lord of Heuksa Chorong can really be.

“Baek. Dong. Soo. I do not appreciate interruptions. Unless...you want to take his place.” I point towards the collapsed Jin Gi at my feet and I can hear you draw a breath at the obvious malice dripping from my words.

Not surprisingly I can see a communal shudder going through the crowd of the remaining underlings. Most of them have heard my voice like this only a few times before and few have lived to tell of it. I almost smile as I can imagine them almost pitying the man who seemingly haphazardly ended up between the wolf and his dinner.

“ **What are you doing?** ” It is obviously not only my underlings who are unnerved by me but In's voice is not as steady as he would like to believe, still thinking he can order me around. Do I really have to make a point out of how utterly meaningless your words are too me.

“ **Wasn't getting Sky Lord's neck our purpose of being here originally?** " Since the Chinese has already left and Cheon has disappeared into the shadows, then I am free to do whatever pleases me, no matter what you say, pig.

“ **What did you say?** ” Your eyes dart from side to side and a unmistakable tremble has caught your hand. Yes, fear me, for if you utter another word I am not so sure I can hold back myself but I might just kill you out of sheer pleasure. However, you are unfortunately not the only one to notice my bloodthirsty aura.

“Un-ah. Stop this.” For a second In made me forget you but your words bring me right back. I hear a gasp from the crowd. They have obviously never heard anyone address their Master so informally before, and seemingly like an order also. If I wasn't so annoyed with the habit people have today of giving me orders I might just smile at your words. However, now they only render me enraged, red bleeding into the corners of my eyes. How dare you show up after three years, thinking you can order me around like that?

I feel peculiarly strange. Your very appearance have dislodged something inside me and now it s scrambling around making me feel nauseatingly sea-sick. I just stand there trying to balance myself again, finding the inner chamber of reclusion that has saved me so many times during these years. However, it is gone. I almost panic as I realise that I cannot identify the feelings rattling about in my empty soul. Am I angry? Annoyed? Do I want to kill you? Or is it a desperate wish to let you hold me in your arms and seek the comfort I have been denied for so many years? I cannot identify them and I cannot hide them. I look at you and I can see that you are just as confused as me, however tranquil you look on the outside, your eyes are giving you away.  
Are you also fighting to regain you balance? Is your body also swimming with unrecognised desires?  
Whatever it is, even I can feel the tension rising, the hairs on my arms standing out like the seconds before lightning strikes. I can sense how, on pure survival instincts all men except you and me, take a step back from the storm brewing between us.

Then all turns quiet, seductively calm. Everyone collectively holding their breaths.  
Words I have read somewhere burn in my mind and I feel my control slipping.

“ _When the mind does not have any answers anymore let the body take over_ ”

Even if I tried I cannot stop it anymore, and I let go...


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER II: ...and There You are**

It is as if a tornado hit a volcano. Within a matter of seconds we have exchanged so many slashes and pars that no one watching would ever have been able to count them properly. I am ready for the kill, dancing around you with my double blades. You, in turn, stoically block all my slashes with your long heavy sword, yielding it as if it didn't weigh anything at all.

If everyone watching wasn't so caught up in trying to survive the blast from our swordplay they would marvel at the masterly swordplay displayed by two equals. Or almost equal. There is a small difference. A tilting of the scales that determines the outcome before the fight has even started.  
For I am in for the kill while you are merely defending, never attacking full out. And I can see it, clearly.

In a blur of motion I lunge for you, fearlessly throwing myself in the way of your sword. You barely have time to move it out of my way, for move it you do. On purpose.  
I cannot hold back a smirk. I knew that the Baek Dong Soo I know would never want to hurt me, you are just too soft hearted. So I ruthlessly take advantage of it.

The outcome make all onlookers collectively gasp. Some in fear, some in admiration and some in blood lust as my sharp blade carve a distinct path in the fragile skin on your neck, drawing a trickle of blood.

Yes, to everyone it looks like I have easily won, but we know better don't we, Dong Soo? My blade might be grazing your neck but your sword is already sheathed inside me, just between my ribs and the skin, on the level of my heart. No one can see it for it is hidden within the dark folds of my robe, even you don't realise it at first. Not until I let out a small choked sound. Then your eyes widen and go dark in emotion, as do mine but in pain. It hurts. It hurts, Dong Soo. It hurts so much I would like to cry out but instead I force myself to keep my face stoic. Keeping my pretence of a winner.

“Un-ah!” Is there a slight tremble in your voice? Is there a slight waver in your wide open eyes? Is there finally a crack in your newly acquired perfection? Is it for my sake? Are you surprised at your own behaviour? Are you surprised at how you automatically moved the sword to not pierce my heart or how you didn't move it enough not to hurt me at all? Maybe inside you, as in me, there is a war between the killer and the saint, the wish to help and the need to draw blood. Maybe I am to you, what you are to me, the trigger that makes them clash in an epic battle of sanity, until red rivers flow. And in them we slowly drown.

I hurt. Your sword is not enough to kill me or even wound me seriously but it still hurts viciously. I hurt so much right now that black dots are dancing in my vision and my knees are shaking at the strain of keeping upright, but I don't know if my wound hurts more than the knowledge that deep inside you, despite your halo, there was a small wish to see me bleed like this.

I hurt, but I realise that I am getting more and more angry. You anger me, Dong Soo, until I almost cannot think anymore, for I have realised how clever you are. By locking me like this with everyone believing that I have won you can make me do anything you want, like a mindless puppet. For if I had won then Ji and Jin Gi would most certainly have been killed and you, you would have been mercilessly in my grip. But now, you just look at me and I know what you want.  
No matter how much I would like to fight it, your sword scraping against the bone of my ribs and my blood slowly flowing over your blade towards your hand, tell me that you will not bend, and you believe I won't either. But I am not you, Dong Soo, I don't break but I do bend. Just like a stalk of bamboo in too much wind, I bend. But know this as an universal truth, Dong Soo, bamboo bends...only to snap right back.

Without turning my eyes from you I calmly issue the order for the rest of my Heuksa Chorong entourage.  
“You can all return, I have no further use for you.” You narrow your eyes at my obvious obstinacy to not follow your wishes correctly so you add what I left out in my order, your voice strong and demanding.  
“and release the prisoners!”

My underlings that have all started to mindlessly obey my order of leaving, freeze, not knowing exactly what to do. They probably admire you to some degree, the death doomed man seemingly pinned by the Sky Lord's blade, that even now can gather as much strength to issue such an order, yet none dare to obey in fear of the my reaction. You look at me with those piercing eyes that will not take no for an answer so I decide to play your game. I am curious too see how far you will take this.  
“You heard him. Release the prisoners.”

I briefly notice the slow reactions from my underlings. They probably cannot understand what their Master is thinking and I don't blame them. This is the first time I have done something so out of character. They are used to me being more...ruthless. I can imagine them thinking “Why would they let go of prisoners doomed to die anyway?” However, they obey without clamour probably coming to the conclusion that their Master care nothing for the other victims now that he has gotten a much more valuable prize in his hands.

The released Ji and Jin Gi however are not so fast to obey, not being pleased at all that Dong Soo has taken their place. Jin Gi is the first to openly voice his fears.

“Dong Soo, what about you? I will not leave!” They cannot see that you are the master of the situation and of course they would worry about you. I keep looking into your eyes as you reply, for I too am curious at what you want.

“Uncle, it's OK..I am fine...Believe in me...just go..and take care of Ji...Go now!” Hearing the surprisingly firm assurance in your voice Jin Gi reluctantly leave. I can see him thinking that he will return the injured Ji, and surely come back with the entire mountain posse to save you. How beloved you are, Baek Dong Soo. Even with this mortal threat hanging over them, they think of you. Why is it that you matter so much while I...Again, this peculiar sensation stirs, making me slightly squeamish in my stomach, as if your very closeness moves me in ways that tricks my mind to believe the ground is moving.

I cover it up by focusing on the injured Ji passing me by. I give her slight nod of respect, breaking your gaze for a moment. The instant it gives me is enough to stabilise me and I notice how not only Ji and Jin Gi limp away but also the soldiers leave. In, the rat, has already cowardly sneaked away during our fight.

The last to leave are my underlings. Disappearing one after another I amuse myself by imagining what they can be thinking as I hear some of them snickering. I am sure their imaginations are running wild about whatever their Master is going to do with his poor victim. Most of them probably don’t really want to know. They have all heard stories of me, stories you would never want to repeat at their horror, and cruelness.  
I have heard them myself, these legends of the youngest, most beautiful and deadliest Master of Heuksa Chorong that has ever existed...and despite them being complete fables I have no doubt this will be yet another one to add to the list of my “achievements”. I would laugh if your sword weren't lodged in my side.

They all leave, not one of them even once turning back.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER III: The Little Death

We stand frozen, locked in the same positions until all have left. When the last man has disappeared I clench my teeth, lean in and put more weight into my sword, letting the edge carve deeper into your throat at the same time as your sword is also pushed further into me.  
You have been looking away to make sure everyone is gone but you whip your head around as you hear me grit my teeth in pain. I take one step towards you and surprisingly you yield, then one step more, and one more.

“What are you doing Un-ah?” There is an alarm in your voice as you try to vocalise your worry, but whatever you see in my eyes you are effectively shut up. Is it that in my eyes you can feel the pretence of a voracious beast, a smothering darkness threatening to engulf you in just one bite? In these three years I have become a wolf, a starved beast circling the forest endlessly for its next pray. It is all that was left to me. My hunger. Your ill-covered fear bloodies my teeth and if you expect me to explain myself you are sorely mistaken. There are no words for what I feel right now and animals don't speak. At least not in words.

The sharp edge of my sword is surely and relentlessly pushing you backwards, as I put more and more pressure on it. Your sword is gnawing in my side and my blood has now reached as far as your hand, tainting it. See, Dong Soo, now your hands are also stained with blood.  
It is strange but the thought of you joining my ranks are pleasing me, as if just a bloody hand would prove my path of terror right. Three steps more and you back right in to the wooden door of the abandoned barn behind you. You are cornered and you know it. If you take one step forward you will draw more blood from me, if you take one step back then I have won. I lean into you and with a shift of my blade the entire egg is pressing on your throat.  
“Now, Baek Dong Soo, shall we negotiate?”

Your eyes hold an expression I have never seen before and your hands are shaking. Is it pity? Is it anger? Is it fear? You open your mouth as if to say something but you stop short as I grimace in pain at your movement making your sword grit harder into me. Your eyes fly from my face to your hand, still holding the sword so hard your knuckles are white, and you make an expression as if you are surprised to see it in your hands.  
“Un-ah!” My name on your lips, spoken with such worry almost makes me smile. Don't worry about me Dong Soo, this is nothing. I have hurt worse, much worse. Many times. Although I don't tell you about this, for really I know, that this is my chance. My revenge. My vendetta.

Your face is only centimeters away from me yet, even with my blade carving into your skin and my dark eyes pinning you to the door, you still refuse to look down and admit defeat. It is hilarious to see so many emotions pass your face in such a short time and this time I cannot stop my smile. Maybe it is the blood steadily flowing down my side and leg, maybe it is sheer fatigue of always being on guard of myself, maybe it is just you, but I find myself feeling deliciously lightheaded.

You look me straight in the eyes with that unwavering spirit that is you, and I am rendered aware of the outline of your body and the heat emanating from it. Again you make me remember those stolen moments in the dark when your heat was all I was desperately clinging too hoping for the bleak tomorrow never to come.

I am sure that all my eyes show in this instant is naked hunger, for I am through playing games. I have desperately wanted, no, needed you for three years and it is all your fault. You were the one that put this longing inside me and then cruelly threw me away. However, I am tired of debating this issue with myself anymore. Three years, Dong Soo. It's enough. The “when” and “why” doesn’t matter now as I, for the first time in my life, will live by the words I once heard but have never been capable of following.

“ _Don't think too much, it's simple._ ”

Your eyes have gone steady again, as if the steady dripping of my blood has made you focus. The smell of you is almost intoxicating me and I feel how my temperature is rising and desire pool in me. A thin sheet of sweat from our swordplay is coating your face and neck and I wish I could lean in and lick it. To taste you.  
I want to smile again but instead I feel fury crawl under my skin as your brown glittering eyes keep looking at me, as if you know something I don't.  
What must I do to shake you? To shatter your belief in yourself, what must I do, Dong Soo? Then before I voice it loud I know what I need. What my beast wants.

I slowly remove my sword from your neck letting it glide from my fingers. Before the clink of my blade hitting the ground can be heard, I throw my arm around your neck and claim your lips in a violent kiss that threaten to render me unconscious as your blade sinks to the hilt into my flesh with a sickeningly fleshy sound.

For a split second you freeze in shock. This is not what you had expected, nor even remotely imagined. For that short moment you lips are hard and unpliable as rock, but then you grab me with your free arm in a iron grip and press me to your hard body as you open your mouth and return my assault twelvefold, never letting go of your sword. I always knew you would be my undoing, Dong Soo, but I admit that I never thought it would be like this. So many years I have imagined multiple scenarios on how it would be, but the one that I always favour is this; I would attack you in deep night, you walking on an abandoned street, I hiding in shadows. I would move in, soundlessly like a bat, my two blades drawn and within a heartbeat I would reap what I sowed, as you would mercilessly cut me down like ripe wheat before you even know its me. As I would lie there dying, in a pool of my own blood hearing the World applaud you for ridding it of me, you would walk away. You would walk away, forever unknowing it was me lying there, as my mind would drown in the very last darkness and despair of having been abandoned, again. This time forever. And then this vendetta of mine would finally be over.

I imagined that so many times, I almost believed it. I did believe it.  
But I never imagined this.

As your kiss sucks the breath out of me I can feel myself slipping, the pain and pleasure mixing until my mind is swooning and my limbs loose their strength. I can feel my knees bending, like a reed in wind, and in the distance I can feel you suddenly break the kiss and call my name, but it is blurring out frightfully fast. No, let me just have one more moment, one more kiss, I think, and then darkness smothers me as your frantic voice is calling my name in my ear.

“Un-ah!”

“UN-AH!”


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER IV: This is Me...**

Darkness never lasts forever, however much you want it to. As I am slowly opening my eyes reality overflows me and I realise that all that has happened is not another one of my multiple dreams or futile illusions but it is real. It is as real as the pain I feel in my side and the habitual notion that my rib is just cracked, not broken, as I breath in slowly. I am weak from obvious blood loss but other than that there is nothing really wrong with me...and nothing really right, either.

For I am bitterly disappointed. You have thwarted my long standing wish. The only wish I have ever dared to have. No violent death, no glorious despair, no pool of blood, no final revenge. I am miserably alive, and it is your fault, Dong Soo. If it wasn't for you I would already be illustriously gone from this world, but not even that can you give me. Denied childhood, denied family, denied love, denied my own death, for the second time in this life.

... I feel empty, resigned, like bamboo bent to far. I strikes me that maybe this time I haven't just bent, I really have broken. Without a sound, in a drowning world.  
Pieces of me, like splinters from a broken trunk, are lying all over the ground. I will never again be able to bend far, far, only to snap back like a whirlwind, my words and swords fully drawn. Instead I will slowly rot away as ants and milliards of other small animals invade me and peel away small pieces, carrying it away into the forest. It is a peaceful way to go, not at all how I had imagined it, but now as I think of the cool green bamboo forest I am suddenly filled with calm resignation.

You have plastered me up good, as I am lying in a pile of hay in the abandoned barn I used as leverage on you, just moments ago. You are nowhere to be seen and I assume you have already left, after performing first aid on me. My vest is untied and you have used my belt as a makeshift bandage to momentarily stop the bleeding. The fabric shows nothing of the copious amounts of blood that has soaked into it, that is why I wear black, however my chest is horrifyingly tainted red and I guess the rest of my white skin is too, but I can only guess for I have no strength to sit up and look. I don't hurt, curiously enough. It makes me reflect over the possibility that maybe I am dead then?

I twist my head to look around. The smell of dried grass permeates the rustic building and small bursts of sunlight peak through the wooden planks. It is almost serene lying here like this and I trace small specks of dust dancing in the light only to disappear in the shadows. Is it the first time I have ever noticed something like this? When was the last time I looked around myself and really saw anything, except the inglorious path fate had carved so deeply for me. I have really died then? I must have, for I feel almost...happy...

Such an elusive feeling, I am almost not sure if I can identify it, having felt it only a few times in my entire life. Then, suddenly, the calmness and tranquillity here is gone as I feel the presence of someone else here.

I rather sense you before I hear you. You are outside, walking towards the barn where I am lying, and your steps disclose a certain stress, as if you are eager to arrive somewhere. For a sheer second my body tense up for defense but I force my will to give up before I even move. I don't want to fight anymore. All my anger and resentment has bleed right out of me from your cut and all I have now is this moment. And I want to see you, Dong Soo. I want to see you and talk to you just like in the old days, when we were young and stupid and didn't know any better...or when I was young and stupid and didn't know any better than to throw away the love you offered me then...the very reason for you abandoning me.

The rustling of your clothes is loud I my ears as you open the squeaking door and close it behind you and a herbal smell comes my way before you. Ah, you have been collecting medical herbs for my wound, how kind of you. How hypocritical of you. You need to keep me alive at all costs. Tell me Dong Soo, is it for my sake...or yours? Oh well, since my force of will has completely left me I will let you. This time.

You walk up to me and sit down, unaware that I am awake. You are so concentrated on sorting the herbs that I am allowed to study you in anonymity. The brat has matured, that is indeed true for as I let my eyes wander over your figure I notice all the small details that went right past me at our first meeting, when all I could see was your honeyed eyes. Your shoulders have widened and your back is straighter, but you sit just the same as when you were younger with one leg tucked underneath the other, your foot twitching a little. Your hair is just as unruly as before but as you have tied it back making you look more proper, more adult. I don't like it. I always thought you were as most desirable when your hair was unbound, flying freely everywhere, framing your face like the petals of a spider chrysanthemum. And your face, your face...I cannot stop staring for your face is as radiant as a newly fried honey cake, meltingly smooth and softly shining. You have thinned out leaving your cheek and jaw bones more angular but still your lips are as soft and plump as always.  
Your eyelashes cast a subtle shade underneath your eyes as you bend over the herbs and you bite your lip ever so lightly. You are both delicate and strong, angular and plump, serene and eager, at the same.

You have indeed changed Dong Soo, yet not at all, for you still possess all the innocence and willpower you had three years ago, it is just that you have also gained maturity and confidence. I am ashamed.  
This is how you have made yourself in three years while I, while I...what have I been doing? Only flashes of suffocating black , sticky red and that eternal queasy feeling in my stomach comes before me as I try to focus, nothing else is there. Somehow being in your company makes my mind void of these years I have spent away from you. As if my time began when first I met you and have for three years been in stasis – some empty void, only to start again now, with your arrival.

You reach for your satchel and bring out some clean fabric on which you place your, now crushed, selection of leaves. You also bring out a bottle of water and another piece of fabric. Placing it all to the side you then turn to me and reach out your hands towards my wound but you suddenly stop in mid-air as you glance across my wound to my face and your eyes meet mine.

In your concentration you haven’t even noted that I am awake and now that you know you are suddenly slightly flustered and you embarrassedly look to the side, lowering your hands. But as your eyes see the herbs you have prepared, you brace up, as if you gather your courage, and your hands come up to continue that you had set out to do from the beginning. To clean and tie my wound.  
You refuse to meet my eyes again as you gently lift my vest to the side and remove the soaked belt from the wound. The blood has dried in the edges and you carefully take the cloth and wet it, letting the edges of the belt soak up some water before you remove it. How considerate of you, Dong Soo. Despite this cruel world you surprise me with just how gentle you are.

The belt removed, you throw it to the side and again wet the cloth and softly start wiping away the worst of the crusted blood. I cannot see what the wound looks like because I am fully occupied by watching your face, but I can see by the way you frown that it must look horrible. You soak the cloth in even more water and I wince a little as the cold water glides over my abused skin and down my side, you stop straight away what you are doing, looking up, but I just look back and you somehow read my intentions. Keep going.

When you are done on the front you try to pry your hand between my back and the ground to clean the exit wound, but it is impossible, there is too little space for such a manoeuvre. Another glance at me and you have your confirmation. You grab my shoulder and lift me slightly so I am resting on my other side my face turned away for you, and you have free access to continue your work.  
I let out a small gasp as the cold cloth touches my sensitive side and the water runs over my back, but this time you don't stop to ask, you just let the cloth continue gliding over my torn skin. Your gentle movements are slowly lulling me to sleep and I can feel how my eyelids start to droop. Then suddenly both my eyes and my mouth flies open. For you have replaced the cold cloth with your warm fingers. They now trace the scar I have lower down in my waist, the scar you gave me as you stabbed “Her”, the gift you gave me as my reward for killing everyone that trusted me, the scar of betrayal and abandon.

Are you thinking of her? That almost ethereal being who caught your eyes before I even stood a chance. Are you thinking of how you ran your sword into her instead of me? And how you took her and ran, leaving me abandoned, bleeding on the ground? Well this time you hit right...but are you helping me now because you see her in me, because she is the one who is more important to you? Tell me Dong Soo, are you being kind or cruel?

Your fingers are first hesitantly tracing the length of it as if to ascertain the damage done but soon you replace your fingers with the palm of your hand and now I can no longer hold back a gasp, for the touch is so intimate, so tender. Right away at my sound you remove you hand and the moment has passed as I can hear rustling behind me as you gather the bandage with your herbs. I brace myself as you softly place it over my wounds and hold a hand over it as you grab my shoulder again to lower me back down on my back. Your nimble hands continue to wrap the cloth around my chest and finally you tie it into a hard knot. You are having a small smile on your lips as if you are pleased with your work and I cannot but help smile along with you, for you look just like then, just like so many years ago when you would do something good and then run around bragging about it proudly.

You look up again and I see your eyes widen at my smile and then you smile even wider, showing those white teeth in that smile that suits you most, the smile I love the most, the smile that has caged me for so many years. Despite this cruel world you still surprise me with just how perfect you are.  
It makes me ache over my own imperfections, that shine so surely in your shadow, as if I was the lacking twin of us. You are the best of me, or rather you are everything I would like to be or have, but despite my best efforts have always slipped through my fingers. Yet I smile when you smile, for I cannot stop myself.

We don't speak for there is nothing to say. Nothing I can say can undo my actions up until now, or so I believe, for I do not think you would understand even if I tried. So I say nothing. Neither do you, for there is nothing you can say that will forgive me for my actions up until now, or so I believe. So you say nothing. But you smile and I smile with you.

We sit like that, smiling to each other not speaking a word, for a long time, and before we know it afternoon has glided in to evening and then into early night. I half expect you to leave, to abandon me again. Maybe a secret part of me even longs for it so I can lie here in my misery and slowly waste away. But you instead start cleaning up all the things you used to dress my wound, you even go out and gather some wood and prepare a small fire to warm us, even though the barn is adequate shelter.

As the night deepen and the fire turns into a slowly glowing pile of embers we still speak not a word but just relish in the company of each other, something that has been robbed from us for so long. You stifle a yawn and before I can protest you have laid down beside me in the soft hay, just like when we were young. I feel slightly awkward, for having someone next to me is very unusual, to the me who have slept alone for the last three years. You turn slightly to the side, towards me, but you leave a short distance between, as if you don't want to impose. Then you lie there looking at me under hooded eyelids. In the darkness I cannot make out the look in your eyes but I can feel your heat radiate on my shoulder and my face feels warm. Then I close my eyes for I cannot keep them open anymore, even if I wanted. The day has taken its toll and I am still lacking blood. My body knows it and even though I would much rather spend the rest of the night watching you, I have no say as darkness pulls me under, soothed by your soft breathing and your presence, that seems to fill the entire empty space we now occupy.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER V: ...and Here You are**

Darkness seems to lasts forever, when you want it the least. As I am slowly opening my eyes, reality overflows me and I realise that all that has happened is not another one of my multiple dreams or futile illusions but it is real. It is as real as the overwhelming warmth that is currently enveloping me and I dreamily enjoy it like a purring cat, until my sleep-hazy mind becomes instantly sober in the realisation that it is a person enveloping me, and not a blanket of sorts. It is you, and I could not be more shocked.

My mind is already trying to struggle out of your bonding arms but my body won't let me. It is furiously fighting off my every effort to move and I sigh out heavily in resignation, my reward a sharp pain from my wound and you stirring in your sleep. As you sigh contently and I feel the tingling sensation of your lips touching the nape of my neck, my mind yields too, far to easily.

You are very intimately curved into my back, one arm flung above your head, the other around my waist and your face pressed into the crook of my neck. I can feel every little breath you make against my skin and I find myself shivering at every exhale you make. You stir again and your arm strengthen its hold on my waist, your fingers casually running over my exposed stomach. It is unbearably sensual and despite my best efforts I feel myself getting embarrassedly aroused. You press further in to me and slip one leg in between mine. It sends a jolt of electricity through me and I feel short of breath as I secretly wish you would press even harder and that you won't wake up too soon.

As I lie here in your heavy embrace I try to analyse myself. What do I feel? How do I feel? How is the wound? I am weak from obvious blood loss but other than that there is nothing really wrong with me...and nothing really right, either. I feel torn between brutally shoving you away and run as fast as I can far, far away from here, while another part of me would like to stay here and in pretense act asleep as I drink your heat and comfort like it was the only thing keeping me alive. It is as if the good and the bad inside me are struggling over power, yet I haven't still decided which is the good and which is the bad.

Somewhere in my conflict negotiation with myself, my mind gives in and I fall asleep again, only to dream of night and stars and your callous hands over my heated skin as the sweet scent of grass drowns our incautious moans. Then my auspicious dream slowly melts into reality as I fade into awareness and your imagined caresses turn into real ones. My mind still clouded, I cannot but let out a loud gasp as you whisper my name into my ear as you let your hand trace the muscles on my abdomen all the way down to the the edge of my pants. Am I awake or am I still sleeping? Are you real or am I still dreaming? Another gasp and I don't care anymore, for now you trace small kisses just behind my ear as your fingers are slowly prying underneath the fabric of my pants, following my narrow hip and then lower. I close my eyes in anticipation.

Your touch is both lightly teasing and desperately needy as if you are dying to touch me, yet afraid to.  
My eyelids flutter as your hand brush past my obvious hardness and as you let you palm trace my length I cannot but help to push into your hand seeking more contact. It is as if I have given you permission in an officially stamped letter, for you suck in your breath and then you press your unembarrassed bulge into my buttocks and grab my length, letting your hand close over the tip until I see sparks behind my eyelids. I must have let out a moan, or several, but all I can hear are your sighs and small incoherent noises as you rub against me. Somewhere in my hazy mind I wish that we were naked so I could feel your skin against mine and curiously, as if you had read my mind, you restlessly leave my needy shaft only to bring your hand up to pull down my vest over my arm, exposing my naked shoulder to your grazing teeth. But it is not enough for you and you search and find the cord for my pants and within seconds you have untied it, carelessly pushing the soft fabric over my hip giving you free access to all that I am.

Then I hear you rustle with your own clothing behind me and I realise that you are dutifully fulfilling my earlier wish. I gasp out loud as your scorching hot skin melts into mine as you again spoon into me, this time without any fabric between us. It is as if we were meant to be like this for you fit right in to me, you complete me and you ignite me. Now, there is an eagerness in your actions that belies your earlier carefulness, yet you are still as gentle, as you again let your hand trace over my lithe chest and abdomen, feeling every little muscle that you can find with your fingers. It is a sensual pleasure I have been pathetically deprived of these last three years and despite my best efforts of controlling my body, I feel like I am ruled by your hands and mouth only.

Where does this gentleness come from, Dong Soo? I had thought that when we would reunite after these years, you would mercilessly let your sword run over my body and not your enticing hands. I thought your words would cut me until I bled and not drown me in rivers of honey, as they are now.

“Un-ah...” My name on your tongue takes on a whole new meaning and I can hear nothing but the sweetness of desire in it. Maybe I shall trust you, Dong Soo, for I know that you are a far better person than me. Yes, I shall let you. I will trust you, like I couldn't do then, and see where you will take us.

Your hand seek me again and you slowly start fisting, inducing the most slovenly pleasure I have ever felt. Your freed erection is slowly gliding over my buttocks and every movement you make keep sending shivers over my spine, until I have to let it out through my mouth.  
I must have spoken for you stop abruptly for a second, but then you restart your ministrations, even more eager than before, as if I had desperately urged you on.

Your caresses and slow kisses are too much for me, or maybe it is the lack of blood for I am sinking into a cloud of you, enveloping me, urging me on, driving me to places I didn't know existed. Your gentleness and sweetness drown me in floods of honey and succulent kisses. I feel someone's heart thumping, is it yours or mine? I can hear sweet words and my name, then your name breathed out in a moan, is it my voice or yours?  
You rule me so completely as you envelop me in you tender embrace and I wish, I wish you would never stop. It is the sweetest torment I have ever felt, and will ever feel, or so I think until you make me explode in an euphoria that grips me, pounds me, twists me, wrings me dry as you squeeze more and more pleasure from me. I have no idea what you bring out of me but I want more...more and more...more and more and more.

I am breathlessly numb with subsiding pleasure, but as you keep placing small kisses on my neck and shoulder I slowly realise that I am the only one who has had any pleasure from this coupling, for you are still hard against my buttocks. However I have no strength to move, you have taken it all, you have stolen all of me. I don't even have the strength to speak, I realise, as I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out except my hard breathing.

“Schh...Un-ah, go to sleep...” You whisper in my ear and cover me gently with your vest and I feebly comply. I fall instantly asleep and this time too I dream of you and your honey eyes looking right at me.

And then I dream of the night you unknowingly abandoned me.

And I dream of the day I left you, leaving a trail of blood and you crying on the ground, as a proof of my betrayal.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER VI: Euphoria**

Darkness never lasts forever, however much you beg for it. As I am slowly opening my eyes my dreams overflow me and I realise that I am crying. I am crying quietly, as if it didn't involve my heart but only my eyes. Maybe my heart has died already. Maybe all that has happened is another one of my pathetic dreams or futile illusions and not real at all.

I am crying and I cannot stop, for I cannot believe that you are real, that the tenderness you showed me is real. You are a figment of my depraved imagination and soon I have to rise and once again kill. Over and over again.

The river of my tears are flowing freely down my cheeks, yet I make no sounds. I only take shaky breaths as I watch a tiny sliver of moonlight, from a crack in the wall, move slowly across the ground until it touches your fingertip, and I am shocked to realise that the softness underneath my head is your arm. I am nestled on your arm, you are still holding me around my waist and your vest is still covering us, as if you also fell straight asleep afterwards. You are then, real, you have not left and I am not hallucinating. Yet, how can you be true when you have given me something I don't deserve, something even you cannot believe I have deserved.

I would have thought that my tears would have stopped at the knowledge that you are neither a figment of my imagination, but no matter what I believe, my tears must be from another source, for they do not stop.

I am crying and I cannot stop, for the tears that are running down my face and dripping onto your arm are the uncried tears of all my life, until now. The tears I have never acknowledged, the tears I have swallowed down, the tears that have changed from crystal clear to tinted red by my actions. Yes, now I know. It is not tears, it is the blood red shards of my shattered heart that I am crying, it is the ripped slivers of my tar black soul that is pouring out of my eyes, creating a lake of deception below me.

I am crying and with every tear I am dying, slowly bleeding to death.

You stir and sigh in your sleep, yet my tears don't stop.  
You grab me closer and sigh again, yet my tears don't stop.  
Not even when I can hear you slowly waking up, does my tears stop.

I am crying and with every tear, I get one step closer to my final dream, a pool of liquid and you walking away. For I will drown in this lake of tears and broken dreams and you will walk away, for I am not worthy of anything else.

“Un-ah?” Even as softly speak my name, my tears don't stop.  
“What is wrong?” Even as you lean over me, gently brushing away my clinging hair from my face, my tears don't stop.  
Not even as you half sit up and roll me into your arms in a scorching embrace, pressing my face into your half naked chest, does my tears stop.

“Schh...It's is alright, Un-ah...It is alright...” Not even as you comfort me, hold me and whisper to me does my tears stop, but instead I start sobbing violently, a loud wailing that makes you hold me even harder, rocking me back and forward telling me over and over again that all is fine and that you are there and that...  
“I will never let you go.”

You are so tender that you are breaking me down. You make me want so badly to tell you all and beg, beg for the only thing I know you cannot give me.

I want to tell you everything, about my fathers abuse, about my “Black Star”, about the only kindness I have ever been shown, about the pride of being part of something and the despair I felt when I understood what it really meant, about meeting you and having my first friend, about all our secret meetings and how much you were always occupying my mind. About your embraces and how you filled my heart until nothing else existed. I want to tell you about the night of my first mission when I amidst all blood kept thinking only of you, about wishing for release from my cruel unjust fate, about how every time someone told me I have the eyes of a killer a piece of my heart died, about that night you softly caressed “Her” cheek and how I have never been able to sleep after that. I want to tell you of my three years in death and despair thinking only of you and my betrayal and how every step I have made since then, have only been for you. For you, Dong Soo.

Yet not a word comes over my lips for my sobs are too violent and my sins are too great. Even if I told you I don't think you would understand, and even if you would understand I don't believe that you will forgive.

Yet, I want to tell you...I want to tell you even if it is the last thing I will do, for I am certain that once you know, the only end will be a lake of red and you walking away into the night. But, Dong Soo, I am not afraid anymore. Being here with you, now, I want to tell you, I want to tell you...

“Un-ah...”

And I do...Suddenly, unexpectedly, as if my name on your lips or the way you say it, is the key to the lock of my heart. All the words come out as if a crowded floodgate has opened, maybe in sheer exhaustion of the storm that my sadness is now creating inside of me. In between sobs and hiccups and wails, I tell you all...I tell you all of me and what you mean to me. I tell you of shame and guilt and love and indifference to life yet keeping a final pathetic, desperate wish in my heart that someone, someone would notice and say...  
“Un-ah...I forgive you...I forgive you...”

“Un-ah...I should have understood...”

“I forgive you...I forgive you...please...I forgive you...” and you break down crying just as violently as me, your sobs wracking your body until you are shaking as badly as I am. Strangely enough your deep sadness soothes mine a little and I calm down until I am the one holding onto you, as you continue to cry like a child in my arms. I want to comfort you but not knowing how to do it I kiss your cheek lightly, tasting your tears on my tongue. I continue placing small tender kisses over your temple, over your jaw and under your eyes. I follow your skin until I kiss the corner of your mouth, drinking more of your tears. Your lips are dewy and I leave more kisses until you start to respond, kissing me back. And your kisses...your kisses...they are so sweet and tender and so full of love that I again feel my eyes fill in unshed tears.

Your kisses...your kisses...I could live only by them, breathing in the strength you give me through my mouth, sucking it from your wet tongue. You taste like the sea and I cannot but help think that you are the sea, and I, I am a cloud above you...so close, so close but never touching, never touching like we are now.  
Despite this cruel world you remind me of how lucky I am, must be. To be able to reach out like this and touch you.  
Ah, your kisses, how could I have forgotten? Forgotten a time when I lived almost only by them and by our couplings under star filled skies, when we were younger and we didn't know any better.

Ah, kiss me more, Dong Soo...and you do...

With a frantic eagerness you slip your tongue into my mouth and I sigh as you rip my vest from my shoulders and pull it over my arms, only to continue with my pants. You rip and tear until I am completely uncovered in the moonlight, except for the white bandage covering my chest. I do the same with you, not missing a kiss, and I don't stop until you are as completely naked as I am and you press into me and kiss me so deep I think you will suck the very life out of me. Then you fold me into the hay and cover me with your hot and demanding body.

I can feel you tremble as you rain kisses over me and let your hands worship me, but I don't know if it is from fear of hurting me or in withheld desire, or maybe both. As you kiss over and past my nipples and down my chest I realise that I, too, am trembling and now I understand. It is pure unrestrained shock. It is the violent vibrations of your body reacting to something unbelievable happening to you, that you thought for sure you would never live to feel again. I can feel how blood is rushing into my limbs leaving me with an exquisite feeling of light-headedness. It is the same feeling as when I haven't eaten for a long time, as if I am starving. Or thirsty, after something. Something only you have. Something I now can just reach out my hand to ask for.

I foolishly thought it was desire, when I was younger and didn't know any better, but you taught me the proper word for this feeling. It is...love. This...is love we are making.

My eyes fill with liquid, as your gentle need fills me with warmth and your kisses drown me in waves of euphoria. You are such a tease, Dong Soo, if you continue like this I will pass out in sheer bliss before you even get to have me. I cannot help but smile through my tears for your eagerness after me is so beautiful, and just like you, I want more. Much more. Stop being so considerate, Dong Soo, or I will have to do something naughty about it.

My hands, that have been grabbing your delinquent hair as you make way with your kisses, grab a hold of you hand and before you have understood what I am going to do, I take two digits into my mouth and suck. You taste of crushed herbs and smoke and I roll my tongue around and between your fingers and suck on the tip, imagining it is something else of yours I am fondling with my tongue. You feel it instantaneously, for you breathlessly stop your ministrations and look up, your eyes glued to my mouth and your fingers. I continue sucking until your breath is shallow and your eyes have changed colour, then I take your soaked fingers and lead them downwards brushing past my hardness until they nudge against my opening.  
You draw your breath at my daring invitation and for a second you hesitate but then you lean over me and seek my lips again as you gently tease my opening with your wet slippery fingers. You put some more pressure and I find myself holding my breath at the expectation of you penetration but being so unused to it, my body denies you still. You keep trailing small kisses over my lips and the corners of my mouth and it makes me relax some and finally something yields in me.  
You slip your tongue inside my mouth just as you slide a finger inside my tight channel and I find myself inhaling sharply at the strange yet so familiar feeling. You deepen the kiss and start nibbling on my lower lip as you push your finger further in making me writhe under you. I gasp into your mouth and close my eyes as you find a place inside me that sends a jolt of electricity through me and I almost jump at the blinding bliss that course through me as you keep pressing on it. I must have gasped out loud or begged for more for you increase the pressure of your finger inside me and you graze my jaw with your teeth until I can hear myself calling your name, all breathless.  
“Ahh..Dooong Sooo...aahh...”

Pushed by my cries and writhing underneath you, you add one more finger stretching me in ways I have not felt in so many years. I can feel how my entire body is pulsating in waves, pooling in my loins and down my erection. A huge pressure is building up inside me and I find myself clenching my teeth and wishing for more as you languorously slide your fingers in and out of me hitting the blinding spot every time.  
“nngghhh...Donggg Sooo...stop...have to stop...or I...I am...”

You softly kiss away my protest only to tease me again and I get a distinct feeling that you are enjoying this, having me writhing under you, begging for more. You are so incredibly beautiful as I pry open my clenched eyes and look on you. You have your huge smile and your eyes are glittering. I find myself unwontedly smiling with you, until you press your fingers hard into me again and I arch into you crying out my pleasure, as you keep my hanging by the edge of climax.

Just when I think I cannot take anymore you suddenly remove your fingers and before I have time to lament the loss of them you lower yourself on top of me, letting your shaft nudge at my entrance. Again I hold my breath, for this is the part I love most. There is something almost magical about how both of us hold our breath in unison of the expectation of your entrance into me. You put a gentle pressure on my opening and I can't help myself to bring my hands up to your face, lowering it to my waiting lips.  
I know what you are doing Dong Soo, you are trying to be slow and gentle but it will be my death for I am absolutely wasting away here from want of you. I decide to distract you by sliding my tongue into your mouth and sucking on your tongue. It does the trick for all the force you have restrained in entering me slowly suddenly releases and you groan into my mouth as you grab my thigh and impatiently shove the rest of you into me until the root.

The suddenness of the motion and the fullness of you make me moan out loud both in pain at the invasion and in pleasure, and I clamp down on your hardness, in turn drawing loud groans and pleads from you as you try to remain perfectly still inside me.  
“Un-ah...sooo...tight...Un-ah...ooooooohhh, don't move...too...”

Yet, I cannot stop now, I am burning like a forest fire to have more of you.  
“Doooong Soo...more...”

“Naahh, cannot...if..if I move now...aaah...” I can fell you pulsate inside me and I know how close you are, yet you strive so hard to make it last. Trying to hold yourself back you start to place small kisses over my face and down my neck and little by little I can feel how your heartbeat calm down and how my body is embracing you more and more. It is sheer torture, violent bliss and blinding love at the same time. Never before have you loved me like this, never before have I loved you like that.

You start rocking against me, teasing me inside out as you barely move your shaft but make my erection graze across your abdomen. You are going to make me wild in despair if you continue like this Dong Soo, and in a desperate attempt to make you move harder inside me, to draw more of that delicious friction, I clamp down on you and grab your buttocks pressing you violently to me. That does it, for you for you suddenly sit back and throw my leg on your shoulder as you thrust hard into me and start an almost violent punishing rhythm, pumping your rock hard shaft in and out of me. I am more than wild in desire and every thrust you bottom out in me I see fireworks in my mind. I am completely yours as your grasp on me hardens, your thrusts grow wilder and your hands grasps my erection until all sensation in my body is located on the places you are connected to me. Your moans and gasps and the way you breath out my name as you continue to brutally thrust in me is sending me over the edge far too soon. As I explode I the most violent and intense climax I have ever had a random thought passes me by that I should tell you that I love you but all too soon it is forgotten in the sheer violence of this pleasure. My entire body convulses around you as I spill my seed over your hand and myself in a loud cry of bliss.  
My bone breaking orgasm sends you straight into oblivion too, as I close in on your heated, throbbing shaft and with a final thrust you lodge yourself deep into me, every muscle tensed to steel, and with a loud groan you spill your hot fluid inside my demanding channel. Your entire body shudders with each spurt until you in boneless abandon collapse on top of me breathing so hard I can feel your heartbeat against mine.

For a long time we just lay like that, sticky, sweaty, our hearts beating away and our minds saturated with love. The you softly slide out of me and off me, but grab me so that I fall along with you until I am nuzzled into your side with one hand over your heart and my head on your shoulder.  
I place a small kiss on your chest and taste the salt on you and once again I am struck by how the very essence of you is as calm and as deep as the sea and you even taste like it too. Then if you truly are, then my heart is too.

That deep unforgiving ocean that is my heart, which belongs solely to you, and always have.

That is what you are, Baek Dong Soo, you are truly the sea. For I have never met anyone that is so forgiving as you are, there is a place for everyone in your heart, your endless heart.

“...Baek...Dong...Soo...”  
I don't even know I have whispered your name out loud until I feel you breath in deeply and then you whisper back the words to me, that only you can say...and mean.

“Un-ah, I will...no...I cannot...ever...give up on you.” You hand comes up to cover mine that is resting over your heart. Steadying yourself with the other hand against the ground you slowly turn around, our sticky skins brushing against each other. Your face is curiously serene as you look at me with those clear eyes, still holding my hand.  
“...don't you know that?”

and then you add, in between your strong heartbeats resonating in my hand, something that I will always, always remember. Something I have always needed to hear even though I didn’t know it myself.

“and forgive me...for abandoning you...”  
And it strikes me with a deafening loudness, like standing inside a chiming monastery bell, that all of this is in my head. All the hurt, pain and angst I thought was my cruel fate, is all in my head. There is no such thing, and I am not obliged to blindly follow it. I am the one hurting me.

“ **You are ready to kill...** ”  
I am the “Black Star” I have created myself, not you, not my father nor fate.

“ **Un-ah, you betrayed us?** ”  
The grievous wounds I caused in the name of fate, I gave myself as well.

“ _you will become a huge black star that...swallows the light from all the others..._ ”  
All this time it has been me, not you, misunderstanding.

“ **That is the look of a killer...the look of someone ruling life and death.** ”  
All this time I have been slowly bleeding to death, mortally wounded by my idealised idea of my fate.

“ **I cannot ever...give up on you.** ”  
Until you.

I would like to tell you all this but the weight of my realisation glues my tongue to the pallet. Not a word passes from my lips, yet, I am sure my eyes are giving me away for you give me a smile that lights up your eyes until I am almost going blind by looking at you. Just like so many years ago.

Baek. Dong. Soo. By this one sentence...  
You have set me free.

And with that profound understanding I can finally smile, a true smile from my heart, as you envelop me in your strong arms in an embrace that contains all of you.

Baek Dong Soo, you are so strong. Stronger even than fate.

Undoubtedly, even if you are not mine, I belong to you. I always have and I always will...for I have realised that black is not the colour of darkness and despair.

It is where the pale light of the moon and the stars shine as brightly as your promise to me.  
“ _I will never give up...on you_ ”

For now I know what it really means, and you never, ever lie.


	7. Chapter 7

**EPILOGUE**

Night is deep and the sky is littered with lights, as we exit the capsized barn and start making our way down the mountain. As I look up to see the small hopeful stars in the massive darkness I feel as if a great burden has been lifted of my shoulders. I have decided, Dong Soo. I will turn my black star into something else, something beautiful, because you made it possible.

Thank you, Dong Soo.

You hold my hand the entire way, yet we speak no words for there is nothing more to say. I know. You know. That is all we need.

As we reach the crossroad you stop a step ahead of me. We both know that this is where we part, but not forever. Never again. Our paths were maybe never meant to go parallel to each other, but they will certainly, certainly cross, every now and then, for short moments that will mean everything to us. That is enough. That small happiness is enough, for at least I get to have that. Still we are both reluctant to let go.

I open my mouth to say something, anything, but you beat me to it by suddenly turning around and seeking my lips in a kiss that weakens my knees, speeds up my heart and makes all the years of anxiety, insecurity and self loathing melt away like butter in sunshine. Then you let me go just as abruptly and your eyes are glittering as you throw me your usual wide smile that is so contagious, a smile containing all the joy and content mirroring my fluttering heart so perfectly and I cannot stop myself from the words that has to come out.  
“Baek Dong Soo, don't be so proud of yourself. Next time for sure...I will beat you!”

I try very hard to not show that the corners of my mouth are pointing upwards, using all my acting skills in trying to act coolly, when I really want to burst out laughing until my lungs ache by me copying your usual tag line from our earlier days. And the answer you give is the only answer we need.

“Yeo Un...maybe next time...I will let you...”


End file.
